City continues budget tightening, manager warns of rate increases
by Peter Jakey, Managing Editor
The city of Rogers City has set aside enough money in the 2009-10 budget to preserve city jobs and to prevent any service reduction. Also, the council has delayed any water and sewer increases — for now.
?It is a very tight budget,? said city manager Mark Slown. ?Everybody is making some sacrifices of one kind or another. The news is that everybody is hurting, and the city is hurting too.?
Council reviewed the $1,860,000 budget during a late afternoon budget workshop session Monday and set a hearing date for the new fiscal budget for May 19. The budget was cut by $200,000 to get it to this point.
The tough part is over for now, with cuts being made, but where will it end and how much more difficult is it going to get? It is a question on the minds of every government entity, or person with a checkbook to balance.
?THIS BUDGET news is good for everyone,? said Slown. ? No employee of the city is going to be let off, or see their hours reduced, because they are all very much needed.? However, the police department will be working without one officer for at least six months with the pending retirement of Sgt. Bill Stevenson.
?We are going to wait a while before we replace him,? said Slown. ?That means the officers are going to have to pull a little overtime and cover for each other. We wanted to be careful and see where we are before hiring a replacement fulltime officer.? The DPW crew will continue to work with a crew of six in the new fiscal year. When Bill Robin retired as DPW director and Roger Wenzel took his place, no new employees were hired.
?They are really feeling it,? said Slown of the DPW. He said it was really evident when the roads needed to be cleared this past winter. ?THE FACT IS, we can?t continue to do this forever,? said Slown. ?And at some point, either staff is going to be reduced permanently, or the city is going to have to look at increasing its revenues. Right now, were are not doing that.? The city will be facing some tough decisions in the near future, which potentially could raise combined water and sewer rates by $20 or more, on average from $45 to $65. The United States Department of Agriculture has approved a 40-year loan with a 2.75 interest rate for major upgrades needed to the waste water
?Right now in this budget, there are no increases to water and sewer; however with the USDA project, which the city council will be considering in the next few weeks, it would lead to increases,? said Slown. The total cost of the projects is estimated at $7.5 million. The city already has incurred engineering expenses of more than $200,000, which will have to be paid by the end of the year. The city continues to look for grant funds to help cushion any rate increases.
Slown said, ?no one wants rate increases, especially during an economic crisis; however, we can not let the water or sewer systems fail ? the public?s health depends on them.?